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In:From Gesture in Conversation to Visible Action as Utterance: Essays in honor of Adam Kendon
Edited by Mandana Seyfeddinipur and Marianne Gullberg
[Not in series 188] 2014
► pp. 177–198

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The word according to Adam

The role of gesture in language evolution

Published online: 6 August 2014
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https://doi.org/10.1075/z.188.09cor
Adam Kendon and I disagree on just one aspect of the role of gesture in language evolution. Where I propose that manual gesture preceded speech, he argues that gesture and vocal language evolved as equal partners. Some arguments for the gesture-first theory no longer seem to carry force, but the main support comes from evidence that vocal production in nonhuman primates is largely involuntary and inflexible, whereas manual action is flexible, intentional and learnable. This suggests that language evolved from manual grasping and manipulation in primates to pantomime in our hominin forebears, and was gradually conventionalized toward arbitrary symbols. Speech was one outcome of this process, although gesture is an option, as in signed languages, and also accompanies spoken discourse.
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Cited by (2)

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Wacewicz, Sławomir & Przemysław Żywiczyński
2021. Pantomimic Conceptions of Language Origins. In Oxford Handbook of Human Symbolic Evolution, ► pp. 701 ff. DOI logo
McNeill, David
2014. Gesture–speech unity. Language, Interaction and Acquisition 5:2 ► pp. 137 ff. DOI logo

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